GAME RULES | The board and its characteristics
The school grounds, on which the game takes place, are presented on a playing field consisting of 17 by 42 squares.
The playing field is made up from:
Standard tiles
These tiles have no special function.
Search tiles
These are the tiles marked by the different colors of rubble.
Every search tile can be searched once during the game. When a player searches on a search pile, he/she may draw a card from the corresponding item pile.
The three color variations indicate the tiers of the search piles. Green for tier 1, red for tier 2 and purple for tier 3.
Doors
Doors are indicated by wooden beams between two tiles. Doors have to be opened or broken down before players or zombies can pass through them.
Doors can be blocked by players. While the door is blocked, it will be more difficult for zombies to break through it.
Once a door is broken, it cannot be repaired and will stay open for the rest of the game.
Hatches
Hatches function the same way a door does, but connect two non-adjacent tiles.
Windows
Windows are indicated by wooden beams with a light effect between two tiles.
Windows can be broken by players to pass through them, but the player will take a damage penalty (2 HP) every time it passes the broken window.
Points of interest
The fountain
The fountain is indicated by the picture of the fountain covering 9 squares.
The fountain acts as a spawning point for players at the beginning of the game.
The fence
The fence is indicated by the grey line that connects the top and bottom side of the map.
Crossing the fence has an impact on the tier of search tiles players can use.
The gas station
The gas station is indicated by the building in which the car is parked.
The gas station has no walls, so all players can move through it freely.
To win the game as survivor, you have to stand on or adjacent to the car while having all 3 needed items to repair the car.
Survivors
Characters
At the beginning of the game, the players can choose from 5 characters, each with their own special abilities;
Milo
Type: Support
Item: First aid kit
Active ability: Restores 3 HP to oneself or to any player adjacent to they.
2 turn cooldown
Backstory: Milo came to the school a year ago and since then they have become the center of every major drama. They feed off it, crave it. It is the only thing they love more than their Warhammer 40k figurines back home.
Ellie
Type: Damage
Item: Bokken (Wooden practice sword)
Passive ability: Once every action you have to throw one or more d20’s, you can reroll one of them. This passive is only active when you use her bokken to attack.
Backstory: Ellie is badass, in one word. Her parents moved to town from China where she was a regional champion in Kendo. Everybody knows not to mess with her. She has spent her time at the school gathering a following everywhere; she’s popular, or just plain scary.
Franky
Type: Utility
Item: Hand crank flashlight
Passive ability: Every time you search for items, you can look at the 2 top cards of the item card pile. After choosing one of the 2 cards, put the other card back in the pile and reshuffle it.
Backstory: Franky came out in a flash and has since been known as the most flamboyant person in the school, his fashion word is law and everybody knows it. Many say he is the reason gay stereotypes exist, but he owns it like they were his own definition.
Chaytt
Type: Support
Item: Holy water
Active ability: Can cure your infection or the infection of a player adjacent to you. Can also bring turned players back to the living with 5 HP. When you activate this ability, roll a d6. If you roll a 4 or higher, the cure is successful. If you roll a 3 or lower, nothing happens.
Backstory: Chaytt’s family have always lived in town, they are well respected within the community as religious well-doers. His father is a priest and his mother runs the local charity drive. He has a lot to live up to. Rumor has it that his family owns the one and only Holy Grail and Chaytt is known to carry around a vial which he claims contains holy water. They have been claiming that the apocalypse is nigh, people often choose to overlook that madness in light of all the good they have done for the community.
Janet
Type: Utility
Item: Mop
Passive ability: You can move one extra space every action.
Backstory: Janet was one of the only people in the world who at an early age, while her classmates were saying they wanted to be police officers or astronauts, said that her dream was to become a janitor. It was easy to achieve, and already at graduation she had her life in check.
Survivor mechanics
Actions
Survivors can do two actions a turn. The actions the survivors can choose from are;
Attack
Block (a door)
Move
Search
Use item/object
Trade items
There is no limitation to the order or amount of specific actions i.e. a player can choose to move twice in a single turn.
Attack
A player can attack a zombie if it is adjacent to the zombie. If an attack is initiated, the player and the zombie master roll a d20. If the player rolls higher, it attacks the zombie. If the player rolls lower, the attack doesn’t hit.
The damage of an attack is determined by rolling a d6 and adding your weapon modifier.
If you roll a 20, you land a critical hit and deal twice the amount of damage you would normally do.
If the zombie master rolls a 20, the zombie can retaliate. The zombie master rolls a d6 for damage. The player takes damage for half of the amount, rounding down.
If both the player and the zombie master roll a 20, they can attack each other at the same time. For damage, the previous rules still apply.
If the zombie master rolls double the amount or higher than the player’s roll, the zombie attacks the player. Damage is decided by a d6. This mechanic overrides the zombie critical hit mechanic.
If you attack with a ranged weapon, most rules still apply, but zombies cannot retaliate under any circumstances.
Block
When standing behind a door, you can block it for one turn. You have to remain behind the door at the end of your turn.
When you block a door, the door becomes one harder to damage. The zombie rolls to see if it can damage the door. If it rolls a 3 or lower, the door will not take damage. If the zombie rolls a 4 or higher it will take damage, except if someone is blocking the door. In that case the 4 or higher becomes a 5 or a 6.
Move
All survivors can move 5 squares per action.
You cannot store the movement of a move action i.e. you cannot move 3 tiles, open a door and then move another 2 tiles.
Search
When you are standing on a search tile, you can search for an item.
When you search for an item, you can take one card of the relevant item card pile.
Use item/Object
Some items have active abilities which you can use during the game. Most of these will use one of your actions.
Interacting with object will also use one of you actions.
Some examples:
Reloading a gun
Healing with a med kit
Opening a door
Opening a hatch
Breaking a window
Trading items
When you are standing next to another player, you can initiate a trade if the other player is fine with it.
The player who initiates the trade uses one action, the player who receives the items does not.
You can trade an unlimited amount of items in a single trading action.
You cannot trade character specific items.
Dying
When a player dies, he turns into a zombie with 5 HP. The zombie is still controlled by the player, but is if forced to follow the orders of the zombie master. The survivor-turned-zombie keeps using the last equipped weapon before he/she died.
Zombie Master/Zombies
The zombie master is the player who will control all the zombies in the game. The zombie master is decided at random after the second turn of the game.
Types of zombies
The zombie master has control over two types of zombies:
Normal zombie
4 HP
Max amount on map: 15
Amount of actions: 2
Brute zombie
8 HP
Max amount on map: 3
Amount of actions: 3
Spawning zombies
Spawning normal zombies
On the first turn a zombie master is appointed, he/she can spawn 1 normal zombie. This number is increased every turn up to a maximum of 5. Once this maximum is reached, it resets back to 1 on the next turn.
Spawning brute zombies
To spawn a brute zombie, the zombie master must first gather 10 normal zombies on the map. If there are 10 normal zombies adjacent to each other, the zombie master can swap them for a single brute zombie.
Possible spawning locations
The possible locations for zombies to spawn are determined by a couple of rules:
Zombies must spawn on the edge of the map
Zombies must spawn outside
You cannot spawn zombies further left than the zombie closest to the left side of the map.
If there are no zombies on the map, you can only spawn zombies on the right edge of the map.
Important notes about spawning
You cannot spawn multiple zombies on the same tile.
You must first place all zombies you will spawn this turn before you can move your zombies.
Spawning a zombie consumes one of the zombie’s action
Attacking with zombies
Attacking with zombies mostly follows the same rules as attacking with survivors. There are however a few exceptions:
If a zombie rolls a 20 when attacking a survivor, the zombie attacks like normal and on top of that infects the survivor. While infected, the survivor takes 2 damage at the end of its turn until cured.
Survivors don’t have to halve their damage when rolling a 20 while defending.
GAME RULES | Initial set up
Playfield setup
Board
Simply put the board in a spot that is easily reachable by all participating players. The side closest to the gas station is considered the right side.
Cards
Divide the cards into 4 separate piles, according to their function:
Tier 1 items (red)
Tier 2 items (green)
Tier 3 items (purple)
Characters
After you separated the cards, shuffle the 3 item card piles and put them face down beside the board. Lay the character cards face up next to each other on the table. You will soon pair them with their corresponding character token.
Tokens
There are 4 kinds of tokens that each represent the state of an object on the board:
Open door
Blocked door
Searched tile
Broken window
Keep these tokens close to the board as you will often make use of them.
Character tokens
Put the character tokens on the corresponding character cards.
Start of game
Assigning characters: Each player rolls a d6. The player who throws highest may first choose one of the character. The player takes the corresponding character card and character tokens. The rest of the players follow suit in clockwise direction from the player who got to pick first.
Starting location: All players start from one of the 9 fountain tiles on the board.
Player order: All players roll a d6. The player who throws highest goes first. Other players turns follow in clockwise direction. Do note that during the game, if survivors can reach a general consensus, they can choose which survivor starts the turn.
GAME RULES | Award and penalty system
Awards
Survivors are awarded when they organize themselves and play as a team. Finding the time to search on search tiles awards the survivors with the needed items to survive the apocalypse.
Killing a certain amount of zombies rewards the survivors with the ability to search the highest tier items.
The zombie master is awarded by killing players. Killing a player gives him the character of the player as a zombie. This is a very powerful zombie unit. Winning as a zombie master also means winning 1 vs 4 so it gives the zombie master a sense of pride and accomplishment.
Penalties
Survivors who recklessly enter combat are most likely to die. This not only means their character will die, it also means the zombie master gets an extra very powerful zombie unit.
If the zombie master doesn’t manage his zombies very well, he/she will miss out on potential zombie spawns due to the zombie limits of the different types of zombies.
GAME RULES | Winning condition
Survivors
The survivors win by collecting 3 specific items needed to repair the escape vehicle; the car keys, the car battery and fuel.
Each item resides in a different tier of item cards.
When the survivors have collected these 3 items, they have to move these items to the car that is located in the gas station in order to repair it. If the 3 items are present on the car, players on or adjacent to the car can escape and win the game. Note that survivors can choose to abandon other survivors in order for them to win the game. In that scenario, the players who escaped win the game, and the players who were left behind lose together with the zombie master.
Zombie master
The zombie master wins if he manages to kill all of the survivors.
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